I did look at the recruit list and I guess Ben and Blake do fill out the middle with some height, but I would not put them in the same category as Thabeet.

That said, I guess ‘Thabeets’ are few and far between and can pretty much choose whichever program in the country they want to get a scholarship from, which at this point wouldn’t be Michigan. Ben Cronin will be a god segue into rounding out the team to better compete against bigger size and hopefully that will pave the way for even more/beefier/dominating big men in the future.

-S

1) I completely disagree that KG only takes bad 3′s. I’d say he’s pretty disciplined in shot selection and while not being a great shooter is at least consistent (unlike pretty much the rest of our team). I think his biggest problem offensively is throwing passes that aren’t there.

2) I wasn’t arguing at all against Lee but he can’t play 40 minutes. Now if you compare KG and Merritt, well I don’t think there is much to compare. I think Beilein has been trying to send KG a message and he’ll be playing more tomorrow.

3) Grady does bring something to the table other than breaking the press and that is transition offense and dribble penetration.

a while ago, I was talking about Novak playing too many minutes at 4 which was more than he physically can handle, and that affected his shot. But the one who is really hitting the wall is LLP, hope that LLP be back soon. Can’t say enough about two captains, Lee and Merritt are doing all they can and are playing above and beyond. When Novak and Stu be seniors, they will be captains and a formidable duo.

Need a win over MSU and the boys can do it.

I think JB knows what he’s doing with Grady.

Another huge game tomorrow. Maybe they’re all huge now.

It seems Novak has the opposite problem, he has not been squaring his upper body and consistently fades or drifts away from the basket. Beilein and the staff know shooting, and I’m sure they will help Novak solve this problem. The kid earns his minutes by contributing in other areas, but I think Zack Novak will be hitting big shots for M down the stretch.

I wish I saw some sort of obvious error in LLP’s form, but I cannot see anything significantly different from the Oakland debut where he couldn’t miss. He continues to take shots that are within the offense, but they just don’t seem to be falling. Maybe the biggest problem with LLP is that his offensive struggles seem to affect his defense. His on-ball defense is no longer a strength. Maybe he needs to focus on getting to the basket and creating for others. We’ll need LLP to help creat easy offense in road games against NW, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

I don’t really get why people are saying that KG brings so much more to the table. The only thing he does significantly better is break a press. CJ Lee is our best 3pt shooter by percentage. I’ll take that, the improvement in defense, and the smarts running the offense over the ability to break a press any day.

The reason why I don’t mind seeing Gibson and Sims shooting 3′s is they need to lure Thabeet out of the paint so Michigan can cut to the basket as well as drive to the hoop. Having a big guy who can shoot is so important for Beilein because it spreads out the defense thus forcing defenders to guard in every area at half court.

Douglass finally is developing a rhythm and hopefully it’ll continue til the season ends.